


The Kids Are Kind Of Okay

by djcati



Category: FF (Comics), Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Foundation, Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-09 19:23:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djcati/pseuds/djcati
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Franklin Richards was just a normal ki-- okay, he was never a normal kid. But when all the adults suddenly disappear, how long can he and his friends remain kids at all, even abnormal ones?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Probably Almost Maybe Not Panicking

**Author's Note:**

> It's an age-related apocalypse ("what would happen if everyone over age X disappeared?", like that show Jeremiah, does anyone remember Jeremiah, anyway) fic focusing on the Future Foundation, somewhere between volumes one and two (but this is Marvel so don't expect a reliable timeline). I first borrowed the idea from an RP journal I saw years ago, but only wrote a little. And it hasn't stopped haunting me since, so I'm working on getting as much out there as I can. (Non-FF characters will appear later, and ratings may change.)

Franklin Richards was not panicking.

One minute his father had been at the front of the room, talking in his college professor voice about thermodynamics or ... something ... and in the next, he was nowhere to be seen or heard.

The hush of attentive genius kids broke out into wary mutterings, theories about aliens and Doctor Doom and, from Bentley a few rows away, hopeful talk of some sort of transdimensional bomb. Franklin glanced along his own row to see Artie project an anxious question mark into the air; he shrugged in response, double-checked that Leech was still present and awake between them, then called, "Alex?"

The teen was already rising from his front row seat. He lifted his hands in a  _quiet_ gesture. "Don't worry, everyone. It's okay."

"Probably," Franklin muttered to himself.

"Doctor Richards will be in his lab. I'll go see what's going on. Stay here," Alex added with a stern look at Val, who was already pushing past Bentley to follow.

She  _hmph_ ed and returned to her seat. As soon as Alex had left the room, however, she clambered over the front row to take her father's place at the chalkboard. She underscored the equations with a thick white line and turned back to face the other kids, hands on her hips, and demanded, "Well?"

"He was mid-sentence," Bentley said, tossing out the remark like he was already bored. Franklin peered past the Moloid kids to see that he was sketching something in his notepad. "He had no intention of leaving us in peace any time soon. He didn't prompt his own departure."

"No noise," Leech offered. He was staring down at his hands, fussing with his shirt sleeve. Franklin touched his shoulder reassuringly, and Leech seemed to calm a little. He looked up at Val. "No attack?"

"There's been no building intrusion," Val agreed. She pulled a small tablet computer from her pocket (it did  _not_  look like the model their dad had designed for her; Franklin rolled his eyes) and tapped at the screen. She looked up at her brother after a moment. "Think Mom summoned him with the translocator?"

He shook his head, uncertain. "She doesn't usually interrupt Dad's lectures unless it's an emergency, right? Wouldn't she just come and get him? Or call?"

Val nodded absently, having returned to scrolling through something on her customised tablet. "No messages from the Avengers or anyone. If they  _were_ called to something, it's on a frequency I don't have."

Uneasy muttering broke out again. Even Bentley took a break from his bomb design to spare a curious glance. Val had  _all_ the frequencies.

"Grandpa?" Franklin suggested. Then pulled a face and added, "Or Kang?"

"I'm not seeing any anomalous temporal readings, but it's possible--"

"Dragon Man."

Franklin shook his head and smiled at Leech. "Dude, he's a pacifist now. I don't think--"

"No, Greenie's got a point," Bentley drawled. "The android's gone, too. No one noticed that in a room full of genius kids."

"But..." Franklin frowned. "Who would want Dad  _and_ Dragon Man? Um...the Wizard?"

"Still in prison, idiot." Bentley actually turned to shoot him a glare this time. "More likely Diablo."

"Also prison," Franklin shot back. "Spidey got him. Maybe it's Doom."

"Negative Zone," Bentley replied, but with a glance at Val that Franklin intended to ask about later. "Could be--"

" _Boys!_ " Val glared up at them, hands on her hips and looking so much like their mother that Franklin sat down with a  _thump_  and assumed he looked fairly abashed. "Can we  _stop_ naming random supervillains and focus on the problem at hand? Now, while you've been bickering like children I've had a chance to initiate several scans and the preliminary results indicate no outside teleporters or translocators or any other technological interference. However--"

"--however," came a grim interruption from Alex in the doorway, "the sensors Doctor Richards has set up to monitor  _magical_ activity are going haywire. This is officially outside our usual jurisdiction. I already tried to reach Doctor Strange using the numbers in the Baxter Building databases, but--" He paused and ran a hand through his hair. Franklin hadn't seen him do that since their Power Pack days. "--well, the phones are down."

Val frowned at him and lowered the chalk she'd been aiming at Bentley. "What about the Internet? Radio? Our own comm frequencies?"

"Ours still seem to be up. I sent default SOSes to the Avengers, Jean Grey School, everyone else on the list, but I'm guessing you'll know if they respond. I haven't checked radio or the Internet, but, well, I looked out the window and..."

The room was now silent -- not an easy feat with a group of kids, Franklin thought, even genius ones. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Artie projecting another, much bigger and bolder, question mark into the silence. But Alex didn't look away from the doorway, from the window the rest of them couldn't see, until Onome impatiently piped up: "What  _is_ it, Alex?"

The grim look on Alex's face did nothing to ease Franklin's nerves. (But he still definitely wasn't panicking. Not at all.) 

Rather than answering, Alex turned and walked out, gesturing for the class to follow him as he did. "Val, take the class to get all the medical supplies and other helpful supplies as you deem fit --  _nothing lethal._ Guys, follow her," he added, pausing to point towards the main lab. "Except Frank. Frank, you're my backup," he added as the other kids ran in Bentley's wake. (Val followed with an angry yell about short legs.)

"Um," Franklin said. He stared at Alex to avoid staring out of the window. He wasn't sure he was ready to see it, not with the way Alex was talking. "Just me?"

Alex smiled. It was probably supposed to be reassuring. "Power Pack two-point-oh. I'll radio Katie, Jack and Julie later," he added, before turning and punching out the window with a shatter of glass that Franklin could only assume was gravity-aided. Because otherwise Alex had suddenly become a badass without anyone noticing. "But for now, New York needs us."

Alex jumped out the window.

Oh. Well. Okay,  _now_ Franklin was panicking.


	2. POWER-ful?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex Power is an experienced and competent leader of younger people.

Wind rushed past Alex's ears in a roar. He closed his eyes as he dived from the Baxter Building, keeping his arms at his sides and falling head first for as long as possible. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes when he sensed the subtle increase in gravity and spread his arms just far enough from the ground for his costume's "wings" to swoop him up and let him glide into a landing atop a crashed taxi cab.

He frowned. Right. No time to enjoy flying. Alarms blared from all directions around them, cars and buildings and children alike all blurring into a single horrible scream.

Franklin settled a little less gracefully onto the ground next to Alex's cab, and breathed a, "Whoa. This is not good. What happened to all the drivers?"

Alex shook his head and jumped down to peer into the cab. Empty. "No idea. I'm guessing the same thing that happened to your parents and Dragon Man. But--" He stepped forward as he spoke and pulled open the back door of a different car, this one stopped at the lights, thankfully. "--plenty of non-drivers left over."

A girl a year or two younger than Franklin clambered out of the car and stared at the two of them nervously. "My mom-- where did my _mom_ go?"

Alex shook his head grimly as Franklin put his hand on the girl's shoulder. "We don't know."

"We're tryin' to find out," the younger boy added with a smile, before dropping his hand from the girl's shoulder. Alex marveled at how genuine it looked, considering how panicked the boy had clearly been back in the Baxter Building. "Was it just your mom in the car?"

The girl nodded. "We were going to pick up my brother from school, and we stopped cause the light was red--" She pointed up at the now-green light and paused to eye the still-not-moving traffic before continuing. "--and she said, 'What,' like she was gonna ask me a question and then--" She shrugged.

So it definitely wasn't just the Baxter Building that was affected -- as if the chaos around them wasn't evidence enough.

"What's your name?" Franklin asked.

"Jenny," she answered, starting to sniff.

"How old's your brother?"

"Sixteen."

When Franklin looked up questioningly, Alex nodded. Something of a theory was developing, although it wasn't making anything less confusing. "Jenny, Frank here's going to take you to find your brother. If you can't find him," he added, turning to Franklin, "bring her back to the Baxter Building. Either way, get back here as soon as you can."

Franklin nodded, then gestured for Jenny to hang on to his shoulders, piggy-back style. "Hold on tight," he told her with a grin, before jumping into the air as effortlessly as if he was flying alone again.

Alex shook his head in awe. That kid was something, all right. But he focused on the scene around him again, grim expression back in place. Other children had left cars themselves by now, a few having climbed into the front to escape the backdoor child locks. They milled around, asking each other increasingly worried questions, some of the older kids dragging or carrying younger siblings with them. A few were crying, some shouting for their moms and dads, all of them upset and starting to drift together into small, confused groups.

Not a single one looked older than himself.

Alex climbed back on top of the empty cab and whistled as loudly as he could. Some nearby kids trailed off and looked up at him, but the overall noise level was still too much for him to be heard more than a car or two away. He shouted instead, projecting as much as possible as he yelled, "Everyone, _shut up_! Listen to me!"

The volume dropped, nearby wailing becoming sniffles, and although it was barely a block's worth of people paying attention to him, Alex figured it would do for now. 

"Hi. My name's Alex Power. I'm with the Future Foundation -- the Fantastic Four," he added, and waved towards the Baxter Building. The front doors opened right on cue and the rest of the Foundation began streaming out, Val and Bentley in the lead with Artie and Leech bringing up the rear. He grinned at them, then turned back to the crowd and continued, "We're going to help you, but we need _you_ to help yourselves as well. This isn't recess, okay? I want you, you and you--" He pointed to the three nearest teenagers who weren't already holding small children. "--to check all the cars you can and find any little kids who can't get out themselves. Artie and Leech there will help you. Bring them back to the Baxter Building lobby."

Two of the teens had already started before he finished speaking, Artie and Leech quickly joining in. The third looked like he might argue, and Alex thought he heard a muttered, "Who put _you_ in charge," but after a few seconds he peered into the car next to him and then moved on to more.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief. Good call using the Fantastic Four name, he thought. He suspected he was going to have to do that a lot over the next few days, if-- "Here and now," he muttered to himself. "Here and now.

"Onome," he called, "take some of the first aid kits, hand them out to anyone who wants something to do, and see if anyone needs medical assistance. Some of these cars crashed, and I know New York traffic isn't fast, but we might still have a few injured kids on our hands. Anyone seriously hurt, bring them back to the building."

What else, what else? Little kids, injured kids ... what else did he need to take care of? He was suddenly aware of a lot more people paying attention to him, especially as the ones assigned tasks worked their way through the crowds and passed on messages. His team was relying on him and, judging by the expressions on faces around him, some of these other kids were as well. He'd projected an air of authority and now he had to try and live up to it -- and quickly.

Before he could think of something to add, something to keep their attention, he noticed a ripple in the crowd to his right. He turned to watch someone pushing their way towards him, and frowned slightly as a girl his own age -- the oldest person he'd seen so far -- approached, dressed in purple and carrying a bow. His frown deepened. Who was this, some kind of junior Hawkeye?

She gave him a level stare, making him feel like she was right in front of him and not four feet lower. "You're in charge here?"

"Yes," he said, and tried not to wince. He'd replied too quickly. She knew it, too; she smirked slightly. He glared back.

The girl shrugged and gestured for him to step down from the cab. He turned back to the crowd first, realised something else and shouted, "Go check on your neighbours! If you've got brothers and sisters at home, make sure they're okay. Go _help_ , okay, guys?" It took almost a minute for this message to filter through the kids beyond those in the immediate vicinity, but slowly, older uninjured children moved away and the crowd started to disperse in a few areas. Only then did Alex hop down from the roof of the cab to join the girl.

She nodded at him, no smirk this time. She took off her sunglasses and pocketed them as she looked around, then focused on Alex again. "I'm Kate. Kate Bishop."


End file.
